1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic rolled sushi producing apparatus and the object of the present invention is to provide an automatic rolled sushi producing apparatus which can dispense with a large installation space, can be handled by small number of people, reduce people on production lines, reduce production cost and can obtain beautifully finished rolled sushi with the end faces of the sushi kept from getting out of shape.
2. Prior Art
Conventionally, rolled sushi has been produced by putting cooked, vinegared rice and ingredients on a sheet of laver, rolling the vinegared rice and ingredients with the sheet of laver, pressing them from side to give form and finally cutting up the rolled sushi with a knife. However, if rolled sushi is made by hand, people involved are disadvantageously fatigued with long-time work. Quite naturally, therefore, there is a limit to the mass production of rolled sushi for a long time. In view of these facts, there exist a rolled sushi producing apparatus for producing rolled sushi by spreading a film on a linearly stretched belt conveyer, supplying vinegared rice onto this film, next putting ingredients on the vinegared rice, gradually and continuously pressing and rolling the film on which the vinegared rice and ingredients are being put with a guide plate and a roller, cutting up the rolled film into pieces of a predetermined size with a cutting device and finally removing the film and rolling the vinegared rice and ingredients in a sheet of laver with hand, and an apparatus for producing rolled sushi by supplying a sheet of laver on a conveyer in advance and putting vinegared rice on the sheet of laver. Further, convenience stores often deal in sushi in recent years. For the purpose of shortening time from production to sale as much as possible, foods such as sushi are delivered to the convenience stores three times a day. In these circumstances, the demand of the industry of automatic rolled sushi producing apparatuses is being shifted from providing mass-production large-sized machines capable of producing large amounts of products once to small-sized machines which can be handled with a small number of people.
Nevertheless, according to the conventional rolled sushi producing apparatuses stated above, it takes labor to remove a film and then roll vinegared rice and ingredients in a sheet of laver and it is, therefore, necessary to use many people to carry out this operation. Furthermore, since the conveyer is linearly stretched, a large installation space is required. Either case cannot satisfy the recent demand of the industry. Besides, with the conventional rolled sushi producing apparatuses as stated above, vinegared rice flowing on the conveyer is tight rolled, formed and then cut up. Due to this, the end faces of the rolled sushi easily get out of shape, which is not suitable for providing beautifully finished sushi. Moreover, even if vinegared rice is cut up by fixed amount on the conveyer in advance, the vinegared rice is bonded to a film or a sheet of laver because the apparatus is constituted to supply vinegared rice onto a film or the sheet of layer. As a result, the vinegared rice cannot be cut up on the conveyer by fixed amount. The present invention has been made in view of the above-stated conventional problems and the object of the present invention is to provide an automatic rolled sushi producing apparatus which can dispense with a large installation space, can be handled with a small number of people, reduce production cost and obtain beautifully finished rolled sushi with the end faces of the sushi kept from getting out of shape.